Page:The Origin of the Bengali Script.djvu/86

56 28. Ṣa retains the form which we find in the Deo-Baranark inscription of Jīvita-Gupta II without any change.

29. The form of the letter is entirely changed in ha, where we find the upper angle changed into a curve and the lower angle replaced by a short vertical straight line. So, the letter now consists of a wedge at the top, a curve below and two short vertical straight lines.

From this point we have to recognise four different varieties in Northern alphabets:—

(i) the Eastern, the development of which, we have to follow, in order to trace the origin of the Bengali script; (ii) the Central, which gradually developed into the modern Nāgarī and the alphabet of the Southern Punjab and Rājputānā;

(iii) the Śāradā, which according to Bühler, "appears since about A.D. 900 in Kashmir and in the North-Eastern Punjab (Kangra and Chamba);"

(iv) the North-Western. The alphabet has not as yet, obtained proper recognition. It is to be found on the coins of the Hindu kings of Kabul or Ohind and in certain 9th or 10th century inscriptions discovered by Sir Harold Deane, which have not been properly dealt with as yet". It may be termed the Trans-Indus alphabet of the 9th or 10th centuries A.D., which died away after the Muhammedan occupation of the country. It may be noticed, however, that it survived till the earlier part of the 11th century A.D., when we find it on the little known silver coins, with Sanskrit legends, issued by the famous conqueror, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni.